A Vegan Treat: Sponge Candy

Today was a girls' day out with my mom, and after having some awesome Indian food at Tandoori's we decided to try making some sponge candy. It was surprisingly easy (with the help of a good candy thermometer) and turned out delicous. So delicious, in fact, that there's none left to photograph. (Sorry.)

You need:

• 1 c sugar
• 1 c corn syrup
• 1 tbsp white vinegar
• 1 tbsp baking soda (measure ahead of time and smoosh out the lumps)


Grease a jelly roll pan really well with vegetable shortening. Set it aside. In a heavy-bottomed five-quart saucepan, combine the sugar, corn syrup, and vinegar and heat without stirring until hard crack stage (300 F). This is where the good candy thermometer comes in - we used a digital one, as we found our old analog one didn't measure the temparature fast enough. If it gets too hot, it won't turn out.

As soon as it's up to temparature, remove the mixture from heat and stir in the baking soda. The candy will foam right up. Pour it into the prepared jelly roll pan -- it will spread on its own, so you don't need to worry about spreading it -- and set it aside to cool.

When the sponge candy is cool (it will be hard), break it into pieces and melt some chocolate chips or dark melting chocolate. Dip the sponge candy pieces in, coat them, and set them on some wax paper or parchment to cool. Enjoy!

This is really easy to clean up, too -- the sponge candy dissolves in warm water just like it melts in your mouth.

Belated Valentine's Dinner: Mushroom Wellington With Patty-Pan Squash and Potatoes

The mushroom wellington is a variation on this recipe from vegcooking.com. The major difference is that I used phyllo dough brushed with olive oil (5 sheets per wellington roll thingy) instead of puff pastry, since I couldn't find a vegan puff pastry. Also, I substituted olive oil for margarine, sweet onions for shallots, soy sauce for salt, and a mixture of crimini, shiitake, and oyster mushrooms for button mushrooms in the mushroom mixture. I also chopped up the fake beef strips and cooked them with the mushroom mixture so they'd take on the flavour (instead of adding them afterwards). I did the sauce a little differently too: I made a mushroom stock out of about a half cup of mushroom mixture boiled in about 1 1/2 cups of water with a little soy sauce and a good splash of wine, then thickened with a roux of flour and olive oil. The trick when using a roux is to have it at about the same temperature as the stock you're adding it to, and to stir while you're adding it. It comes out nice and smooth that way.

Side dishes were patty-pans, which I sliced and fried in some margarine and sprinkled with salt, pepper, and a little fresh lemon juice; and mini red potatoes, which I boiled in a little salted water and then tossed with margarine and chopped fresh parsley.

It was a delicious dinner, if a bit involved to make. The mushrooms take on a rich meaty flavour when combined with the onions and soy sauce, so they really are a good substitute for beef in this dish.

I also made a special dessert:



...vegan truffles.

Alas, they were kind of an experiment, and somewhere among the alchemy I lost track of how much of what I put in when. Next time I'll write things down.

I made two kinds: the ones rolled in ground macadamia nuts are plain, made with dark melting chocolate, non-dairy "cream" (like Rich Whip), and margarine; and the ones rolled in powdered sugar and cocoa powder are dark melting chocolate and peanut butter.

They were tasty, and if you're feeling intrepid, I highly recommend googling up a truffle recipe and having at it with whatever vegan substitutes you can find.